I must have been gone too long

It seems I've lost my readers. That's OK. I'll just keep writing and you can catch up when you check back. Boy, will you be surprised when you get here and see how much reading you have waiting for you!

Sorry I was gone so long. But I like surprising you every now and then by just popping back into the blogosphere.

I played hooky for a few hours this afternoon. I had to get a haircut and could only get an appointment this afternoon. And while I was at the salon, I impulsively decided to get my ears repierced.

The first time I got my ears pierced, I was 29 years old and was spending the summer in New York City while I was on a fellowship at United Features. One day I was walking past a luggage shop and they had a sign in the window that said "Ear Piercing." So I walked in, stood in the middle of the store, and they pierced my ears. It was one of the boldest things I had done to that point in my life, if you don't count spending two months in New York City alone, with no place to stay. But it opened the door to a barrage of other adventures. Permed hair. Shopping. Spending the Fourth of July on Long Island, at the beach, with strangers. Getting burned to a crisp. Watching the fireworks from the East River that night. Lunching with New York Mayor Mario Cuomo and the 1984 U.S. Olympic Team at Tavern on the Green. Going to the release party of a new analgesic called "Advil." Writing about the 1984 presidential campaign. Serializing a book for Shari Lewis. Writing about acid rain. Writing trivia quizzes for the first "videotext" services, to introduce people to the idea of reading and shopping on computers, through this thing called "the internet." I didn't invent it, but I did provide some of the first content for it!

Anyway, that's what was happening the first time I got my ears pierced. Over time, I became lax about wearing earrings. Life wasn't nearly as exciting as it was in 1984 after I came back home to Oklahoma.

And things are even less exciting now that I'm living back in my hometown. So I needed to shake things up again. I wanted to be able to wear those earrings! And who knows, there may still be some interesting encounters and some choice work for me to do again.

Universe, I'm ready! Just let me get my earrings in!

(Oh yea! I also wrote a section in the 1985 World Almanac on the environment. A former coworker sniffed and said "just one?" I said "YEAH! ONE! How many did YOU write?")